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This summer, the Rio Grande is drying in Albuquerque, New Mexico. On a morning in late July, I visited the thin river in the northern part of town near Corrales. The river is intermittent near the Rio Grande Nature Center in the central part of town and is a dry sand riverbed near the Hispanic Cultural Center in the southern part of the city. My heart breaks as I witness the river’s disappearance—I can almost hear a sucking sound as the cool, flowing water is replaced by a dry sand bed that radiates heat and requires footwear to walk safely upon. Now, I no longer bring my dogs out to the river because the hot sand burns the pads of their paws. This has been a hot year, a hard year, and a type of water year that has been discussed for a long time, yet somehow averted thanks to last minute monsoon rains.  

This year we are not so lucky.      

Many of the farmers of the Middle Rio Grande Valley are out of water. Water management has intermittently entered “Prior and Paramount” operations this year, a situation where there is only enough water in storage for the Native American pueblos, due to agreements that recognize the “time-immemorial” standing of our sovereign and deeply-rooted neighbors. Non-native irrigators north of Isleta Pueblo are not permitted to farm; non-native irrigators south of Isleta Pueblo may divert any leftover water in the system—a trickle of water unless lingering monsoon storms provide a small boost. Farmers of the Middle Rio Grande Valley are hurting and, like the river they rely on, are staring into an uncertain and perilous future.   

As the farms dry, the river dries. This is because during average and wet years, there is usually enough water to irrigate the farms in the valley and, at the same time, provide baseflows for a living river (especially when supplemented with environmental water rights). The river and farms are interwoven and the water being delivered to downstream farms concurrently provides life-sustaining flows in the river, especially in the Albuquerque area. During dry years, this relationship is stressed and as water becomes limited for the river, deliveries to farms become curtailed. Environmental water—water rights that are purchased for improving river flows—are dependent on a wetted river for effective and efficient delivery to the river. ��������Ƶ Southwest leases water from local municipalities for this purpose and coordinates the release of this water with the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. During dry years, it becomes very challenging to get this water downstream to where it is needed most, and this is acerbated when the irrigators are out of stored water. This year, we are focusing our water deliveries on trying to minimize river drying near Albuquerque.  

We are witnessing in real-time the effects of a changing climate. Diminished snowpack in the mountains, hotter summers, drier soils, and shrinking water supplies have been the output of hydrologic models for the past several decades, most recently encapsulated in the report  .  

There are no easy answers...However, the Rio Grande’s water situation could be improved by updating our infrastructure, finding ways to address the overallocation of the river, and continuing to optimize our water management to support communities, farmers, and habitat. There are limitations on these solutions when there is simply less water to go around.    

I wish I could offer an easy solution to you, the reader, to all of this. As I return to my house in the north valley of Albuquerque, I leave the dry, crunchy riverbed near the Hispanic Cultural Center this morning, my heart aches for our poor Rio as the hot summer sun begins to bake the city’s concrete landscape. I do find some solace in knowing that our still-beautiful river has shown resilience to drying in the past. Since the late 1990s, the Rio Grande has regularly dried near Los Lunas and Socorro. In Albuquerque the river dried for the first time since 1978 in 2022 but experienced rare days of drying in Albuquerque in the 1950s, 60s and 70s prior to the import of water from the Colorado River (the ). What is different now is the length of the drying periods and the diminishment of snowpack in the headwaters and the associated reduction of , a primary driver for this ecosystem.  

I find hope in that the New Mexico water community contains a tight-knit group of very smart people working on this very difficult problem. From the Rio Grande in New Mexico Basin Study, to New Mexico’s development , there are structured, science-based, multi-sector efforts underway to . I also find solace in our communities— from the Native American and acequia communities so deeply tied to this place, to the passionate newcomers such as myself. May our love for the Rio and our collective knowledge leads us to a more balanced place.

There are no easy answers here, there are only better futures.